Archive for November, 2011

The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 33: City of Vancouver Archives

The City of Vancouver Archives is the oldest municipal archives in Canada. Included in their holdings are over 2,100 linear metres of textual records, 1.5 million photographs, 36,000 maps, plans and architectural drawings, and tens of thousands of digital records. The City of Vancouver Archives stated the following on digital locks in its copyright consultation submission:

Archives frequently need to undertake actions that could be considered infringing in order to preserve works, conserve a damaged work, and otherwise manage their holdings. This is particularly relevant in the case of digital works, where the inherent fragility of these works makes it regularly necessary to create back-up copies of works, to migrate works to new physical media because of hardware obsolescence, and to migrate works to new logical formats because of software obsolescence in order to prevent them from being lost or becoming inaccessible.

If a work is protected by encryption or other technical protection measures (TPMs) it may be necessary to circumvent these measures in order to be able to back-up, conserve or preserve a work. Circumvention of TPMs for these purposes should not be an infringement. Finally, it is not only archives and cultural institutions that need to undertake these actions, but all persons who own these types of works. Because of this, this exception should not be limited to only archives, libraries and museums – it should be a general exception.

November 18, 2011 — 4 comments — News

File Sharing Lawsuits Progress in Canada as Dozens Face Payment Demands

Earlier this fall, I wrote about the return of file sharing lawsuits to Canada as the copyright owners of the film the Hurt Locker obtained a court order requiring three major ISPs – Bell, Videotron, and Cogeco – to reveal the identities of dozens of subscribers alleged to have downloaded the movie. I noted that the targeted Canadians would likely face the prospect of demands to pay thousands of dollars in order to settle the case (or spend thousands in legal fees fighting the claims in court).

Several months later, sources advise that the demand letters to alleged file sharers have been sent. Assuming the content of the letters mirrors that found in the U.S. (which it likely does), the subscribers face demands to pay $2900 to settle the case, which increases to $3900 if the target does not accept the offer within three weeks. A copy of a recent U.S. letter can be found here. The system is so automated that there is a website devoted to the settlements with “all major credit cards accepted.”

November 17, 2011 — 93 comments — News

The Daily Digital Lock Dissenter, Day 32: Canadian Association of University Teachers

The Canadian Association of University Teachers represents 65,000 teachers, librarians, researchers and other academic professionals and general staff. The CAUT has been increasingly outspoken on copyright, releasing guidelines for the use of copyrighted material earlier this year. On the issue of Bill C-32 and digital locks, the CAUT states:

The current proposed prohibition on the circumvention of technological measures and the devices that facilitate that purpose render meaningless not only the rights of the education community but of the rights of access enjoyed by Canadians at large. To avoid this regime of unreasonable owner control, the Act must be amended to allow the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) for non-infringing purposes.

November 17, 2011 — 1 comment — News

The SCC Copyright Pentalogy

The University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society will be hosting a free public event on the upcoming Supreme Court of Canada hearings on copyright as five cases will be before the court in early December. The panel includes my colleagues Jeremy deBeer and David Fewer, the Copyright […]

November 17, 2011 — Comments are Disabled — News

Clement Sets Target Date for Online ATI Disclosures

Treasury Board President Tony Clement has set a deadline of January 1, 2012 for all government departments to post online disclosures of what they have released under the Access to Information Act. The disclosures are part of the government’s open government initiative. I wrote about the delays associated with the […]

November 17, 2011 — 6 comments — News